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domenica 30 dicembre 2012

MARTIN LUTHER KING

·January,24 1954
He becomes a religious minister of the Baptist Church in Montgomery

·December,1 1955
Rosa Parks was arrested for not leaving her sit on the bus to a white man

·December, 8 1955
Beginning of the 382-day boycott which finished after the abolition of the
racist segregation on the buses

·September,20 1958
He is stabbed in the chest by a mentally disturbed woman

·August, 28 1963
Freedom Walk to Washington and King’s speech

·December, 10 1964
He receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo

·April, 3 1968 at
18:01 Martin Luther King is murdered in Memphis

Speech Contest

The
speech by Martin Luther King, known as "I Have a Dream", was held on
the 28th of August 1963 in Washington, on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in front of a crowd of 250,000 people who had gathered there to
commemorate the proclamation of emancipation, written by Lincoln a century ago.
It was the peak of the March on Washington organized by King to support
President Kennedy, who had just presented to the Congress a measure to give
equal rights to all citizens. During the speech King made ​​also some precise
requests: an end to racial segregation in schools, effective law-making on the
issue of civil rights, protection from police brutality for activists, a
minimum wage of $ 2 per hour for all workers and an organ of self-government
for Washington, DC(which at the time was governed by a committee).

Character Framework

Martin
Luther King Jr., born Michael King, was a Protestant minister, political
activist and American civil rights leader. Universally recognized as apostle of
non-violent resistance, a hero and champion of the outcasts and the
marginalized, "redeemer of the black face," Martin Luther King always
exposed himself on the front lines so that in the American reality of the
fifties and sixties all sorts of ethnic prejudices were demolished. He preached
love, optimism and non-violent resistance as the safest alternative to passive
resignation.

Stylistic Analysis

King
was first and foremost a black Baptist pastor. And as such, he sets his speech.
So it comes out as a strange mix of Afro-American typical musicality,
Protestant religiosity and clear and rational logical argumentation. He, using
one to engage the crowd, the other to move it and the last to convince it,
created a masterpiece of speech. He introduces a slogan, short and sharp,
almost rhythmically repeated during the speech, capable of giving the crowd
something that they can easily remember: "I ​​have a dream", a dream,
something that is not real, but at the same time something plausible,
achievable once they are all together. He brings himself into play talking
about his four little children who will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the colour of their skin, making it clear to everyone
that he really has a dream. He talks about
the Declaration of Independence that mentions that "all men are
created equal" and declares to the world that this is not true at all in
America in that moment. And all this at the same time controlling and fomenting
the crowd to make it ask for itself the only undeniable right of everyone:
freedom.